


Run

by Antag



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Hypothetical, theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-10 21:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antag/pseuds/Antag
Summary: A forgotten gem takes the first steps to become unforgettable.





	Run

The transmission ended.

As the roots circled around her feet, fiercely broken off after being pried off from the dirt, all she could do was stand in disbelief. It couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be, and yet it was.

Pink Diamond was no more.

Strange, alien concepts whirled around her mind briefly. What was a son? What was that person, that thing? It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Deep down in the pit of her heart, she had failed. She felt failure awash every part of her. Her limbs could not stretch quickly enough to evade the sheer sense of guilt she felt. Deep down, she believed, it was her fault. It had to be. As the tears pooled down from her body, the weight of her grief had her pass out.

She opened her eyes again. For a moment, she nearly fooled herself that she was dreaming. The grass, wild and untamed, made sure to keep her company in telling her otherwise. The broadcast was still her mind. It was burned deep into her psyche. There was no other option to, when only the stars above and the earth below kept your mind from decaying. You still remember the moments a pillar would randomly shatter. When a star would fade away after having long since transmitted its light. Every little thing becomes monumental, when there’s nothing else to do.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t be gone. She wanted a colony, right? That thing that was there. Of course! That had to be the reason. She couldn’t colonize It correctly, and then she was lost. Or, to hide from her shame, she took another form, and took new friends. That was it, right? It had to be it, right?

Emotions waxed and waned, simmered and boiled as they collectively drew negative. Guilt devolved to hatred. Shame devolved to anger. Tragically, the bottled-up drive of standing perfectly still translated itself into the most toxic feeling of all:

** _Revenge._ **

A hideous smile grew on Spinel’s face. The plan was obvious. She knew exactly what would make her happy, what would clearly get Pink back. It was obvious, wasn’t it? The reason she had to go. She wanted a colony. It was so clear now! Why didn’t she think of this sooner? It was obviously just another game, another game needed to toughen up to do what needed to be done.

> _“I’ve got to give her what she’s always wanted.”_

* * *

She took the warp and manifested into Pink’s room. By virtue of being a Diamond’s property, she naturally had high level clearance of certain places, or at least knew how to fish for it. The old conversations she used to have with her owner played on loop like a manual. How a colony is usually made. The means to terraform it. A process patented and perfected over millennia.

> _“First, all organic life is purged from it. Then, all of its resources are harvested. After which, gems begin manually terraforming and building through the damage to solidify the planet into one stable, low temperature solid ball of stone. The colony is then annexed, and warp gate technology implemented to link with the rest of the network.”_

So many big words. Spinel would make a dumb joke about the entire empire being one big plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and then splash her limbs around while making a silly accent. It’s alright, though. Those days will come back, perhaps. Or, maybe they won’t. But they will, definitely. This is just part of the game.

Spinel looked out from the window. Homeworld had definitely changed since she was last around. She wasn’t typically around here but would pop in from time to time to play in Pink’s room. The Garden was still special, though. It was **_their_** place. Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. Like fossilized amber, sparkling and golden.

Spinel rubbed her face to quickly absorb the tears forming again and did her hardest to ignore the possibility that the portal back to Pink’s room still functioned during all this time. It was clearly a mistake amongst a readily growing list of them. She quickly jumped down the window and rapidly slinked down the walls. She didn’t know how she was doing this, but it felt natural for her. It was an almost feral instinct giving her the means to do things she’d never dream doing.

Limited only by her imagination, the madness of her movements felt empowering. Then again, maybe it just felt nice to flex her entire body after thousands of years without moving. It made her feel alive again.

She slunk down the floor and quickly moved past guards undetected. Quickly, she searched room through room for something. Anything. Thoughts ran through her mind in a cold sweat before she came to a large collection of books. Of course! Books are the answer.

With heightened tenacity, Spinel poured through book and tome to find out more about the transmission talked about. Earth was the name White Diamond said. The colony’s name was Earth. In a manic haze, she put the books back and slipped into the back to a collection of star maps. The holoslabs stood tall and bright. Her gloves rapidly slapped against the clear-cut glass as she went through several maps. Sliding across them all, speed a-blazing, she found it.

It was nothing impressive. Earth was but a tiny little mudball in the doldrums of the Milky Way. A mundane celestial body in a mundane little galaxy. Spinel scratched her head. Size, volume, it was genuinely dull. This is what she was left for? The entire thing was practically underwater! Her hands folded into fists as she prepared to take a fierce swing into the glass, stopping only a millimeter away when she noticed something. Her fist slowly hovered over to a small little object floating around the Earth. Delicately, she opened her hand a put a single finger on it, holding it to reveal a greater picture.

How could she have forgotten? Moons were a common location for establishing bases during the seizure of a planetary body. Colonization could be safely monitored from a distance as the grunts did all the heavy lifting. Yes, yes! Maybe, all this time, she could be there. There was a portal as well, as she typed away to take the coordinates and shut the machine off.

Someone, hearing the commotion, immediately barged in only to find nobody there.

* * *

Spinel appeared before the yawning monolith that was Pink Diamond’s former base. It was old; visibly unused for eons. The mere sight made her uncomfortable. It reminded her too much of the ruins of the garden. Somehow, it was even more lifeless. There was no time for pause. The game had to start.

Spinel correctly deduced that if Earth still had organic inhabitants, it meant that life had not successfully been purged. She did not feel for the lifeforms, if only because she didn’t really feel for anyone. How could she, when she was too busy still trying to understand herself? She roamed madly through the entire Moon Temple, backflipping and bouncing around every corner. No stone unturned, she sought to find it. Maybe something like it would still be here? It was a long shot, but she felt she had to try.

There she stumbled upon a hallway. In it was an out of the way door with a passcode on it. She grimaced as her hand hovered over the keypad. The fingers wiggling over the keys, she settled for immediately smashing it without a second thought and breaking through the door.

There, it stood.

In the large warehouse sized room was a large injector device. It wasn’t just any injector device, mind you. This was the one destined for Earth. It was a familiar weapon across planets terraformed by the Diamond Authority; a glass vial with a gem based central computer at the top. It was more than just empty; it was never activated. A blanket of dust kept it comfortable through its solitude.

Spinel approached it cautiously. Why did Pink never use this? Maybe there was some weird hitch with the colonizing. Or, maybe, she was going for something a lot more different, though it couldn’t be. She wanted a colony so badly. She wanted it more than…

> _“She wanted it more than me.”_

Spinel literally punched the lights on, her arm retracting back before she spiraled all around and up the device, standing on top of it. How does it tick? Where does it tick? How can I make this work? She put her hand on it as it began whirring.

Spinel sat dumbly on the head of the device and realized that it operates on basis of Gem Communion; by activating it with her gem, she merely had to provide her own cues for its operation. She gently rubbed the injector with her hand.

> _“Pretty sad that I’ve got more in common with ya than the average gem, ain’t it?”_

Her fingers shifted gears from patting to tapping, as she began activating the pink liquid that began pumping upon activation of the device. Yes, it was all coming back. Pink said it before:

> _“Yellow always talks about how injecting the poison to the core made sure all organic died as swiftly as possible. Frankly, she said it was the ‘most humane’ means of mass extermination, describing it akin to a mass euthanasia. I don’t know, though…”_

Spinel cackled madly as she raced to the holodeck upstairs. Someone had been here before; she could sense it. The devices were still warm, at least for something that may have been sitting there for thousands of years. Spinel pulled up a map immediately, and there it stood before her.

A beach house in the middle of nowhere, built onto a cliffside.

Oh, what luck! Spinel jumped for joy, the venom in her heart solidifying. Her feet clicked in the air as she approached the hologram, cusping it in her hands. It was time to pay a visit to this person. To all of them. To make them pay.

Wait, no. It was to finish Pink’s dream. It was, wasn’t it? No, yes. Of course, it had to be. But maybe making him hurt a bit wasn’t too bad either. He had it all, after all, this Steven Universe. Friends, family, a home. Maybe, just maybe, he needs a reminder. Maybe…

Spinel held up a Gem Rejuvenator she nabbed while sneaking around the Diamond Palace.

> _“I dunno what funny bunny nonsense those weird prod lookin’ things were, but this is sure to keep things interesting…”_

Spinel span the scythe around casually as she ran back down with the coordinates to the injector, slicing everything she could see and laughing all the while. The machine already finished producing the biotoxin. Glowing and filled to the brim, Spinel was ready as she kept laughing to herself. Laughter echoed through the empty Moon Temple amidst the storage chamber housing the device, before Spinel ceased and dropped her scythe to the floor.

She was shocked by something she didn’t realize. Staring so long as the injector’s glass, she saw her reflection come into focus. She walked slowly towards the glass, a hand touching it as she looked closely at her face. Streaks of black ran down her eyes as her hair had run ragged. Her eyes had become intense and prying, with her chest having changed to black. She was darker overall, and her once round edges ran sharper. Her shoes were pointier, and most importantly, her gem had switched from a heart into a spade.

She rested her forehead against the glass. She didn’t even know she changed. When did that happen, she wondered? Did it already happen when she stood there, indistinguishable from the plants and architecture? Did it happen when she passed out? There weren’t any functional mirrors in the garden; the grass had shriveled up the brilliant pools of water and the dust settled so thick upon any reflective surface that they dulled even the finest of mirrors available.

Or maybe, deep down, she knew this was it this entire time. She knew **_this_** was why.

She kneeled down quietly on the floor for one last, good cry. Better to get it all out before you embarrass yourself like you’ve already done in front of Pink Diamond so many other times before in the past, right? Or so was apparent. There was no one else around to judge her but the dangerous death machine next to her, silent and accepting. Her fate was sealed the moment the tears stopped flowing; her purpose, alongside the injectors, was now one and the same.

Picking herself up from the floor as only someone like Spinel could, she inputted the coordinates into the Injector. Unfortunately, there was no launchpad around. The area had a large exit sealed shut through the years of neglect. She looked at the massive doors and back at the injector. It was obvious, then, what she had to do.

Slowly she rested the injector on its side, aiming it to the doors. She latched onto the injector, and with her pinky finger spooling into a large horn, she blew the klaxon activating the injector’s movement. Straight through the doors the injector pummeled through, as it and she hurtled through the vacuum of space. The injector was heading straight to one spot as Spinel held on for dear life. Spinel could feel the heat of atmospheric re-entry washing over her. It was the first warmth she felt for six thousand years, and yet it came from the very planet she sought to destroy.

She closed her eyes and kept hugging the head of the injector for dear life. Elastic though she was, she was not exactly built to be an asteroid. Surviving re-entry and reaching terminal velocity, she felt the flood of her memories rush before her eyes intently. Pink Diamond. The Garden. The Pearls. The Diamonds. The Palace. The good times. The loneliness. She closed her eyes in panic, immediately regretting going through with this. Maybe this was going a bit too far. Perhaps something else should be done instead. Could she even commit to this?

All those thoughts were cast aside the moment the injector stopped in its tracks, as she felt the immense G force crush her. Flat as a pancake she laid atop the injector, stopping before realizing she was here on Earth, amidst blue sky and crystal ocean. She could hear the legs of the injector slowly coming out and setting into the ground, nice and firm with a metal thud. The whirring of the needle forming underneath could be heard from atop, as she slowly stood up and dusted herself off.

> _“I guess it don’t matta’ now. The show’s about to begin… I’ve set the stage. Now I’ve gotta host it.”_

She stood forward, one foot in front kneeling in a pose and looking down at the humanoid before her. The tiny little mound of flesh in that disgusting technicolor. That was the one in the broadcast. Her anger returned, and now it was time.

> “Are you the one they call Steven Universe?”
> 
> “Uh… yeah.”
> 
> ** _“Perfect.”_ **

* * *

Spinel dangled idly on White Diamond’s index finger.

> _“And yeah. That’s, uh… how I did it.”_

Yellow looked at Spinel skeptically.

> _“You’re telling me that in the span of a few hours, you managed to sneak through the palace, snuck to Earth’s Moon, stole an Injector, and nearly eradicated the planet to try and kill Steven?”_

Spinel nodded, shame tinging her face.

The Diamonds all laughed collectively.

> _“Funny **and** smart! You know, if only Pink had shown that kind of initiative from the very beginning…”_
> 
> _“Yellow, please.”_ Blue interjected. _“Pink worked hard to do what she did, for better or for worse.”_
> 
> _“True, I suppose. I’m just impressed a little runt like you could manage to pull that off in so little time. It’s very respectable. Some of my own take a day to do a simple task and you manage to move boulders in mere moments. That kind of initiative really gets you far.”_
> 
> _“…but I nearly killed Steven! You know, your uh- I think its grandson? Is that how it works?”_

White Diamond gave a lazy handwave.

> _“Dear, so have we! In fact, I think nearly everyone he has ever met one way, or another, has tried to kill him. Between you and me, he may be the unluckiest of the diamonds.”_

Spinel was mildly disturbed by this revelation, but simply shrugged it off and kept dangling away in the midst of her new dysfunctional, but loving family. She thought about those words; perhaps it wasn’t misfortune that constantly befell poor Steven, but merely the struggle in trying to be better than himself being a permanent uphill battle until the day he dies.

Thus, she and her family laughed away the days in the Palace.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story based on how Spinel could have managed to get her hands on everything and managed to execute everything she needed in the span of a few hours.


End file.
